What is the functionalists view on family?
Functionalists see the family as a particularly important institution as they see it as the ‘basic building block’ of society which performs the crucial functions of socialising the young and meeting the emotional needs of its members. Stable families underpin social order and economic stability.
Is George Murdock a functionalist?
Functionalism and Family: George Peter Murdock believes that the family provides four vital functions for society: sexual, reproductive, economic and educational. The family is the primary point of socialization in that it provides children with values and norms. Family also stabilizes adult personalities.
What is the functionalist perspective on marriage and family?
The structural-functionalist perspective, marriage and family are a basic building block of society. Marriage and family, are necessities for a stable society. Marriage and family perform a number of necessary functions, which provide a structure that children can be produced and raised.
What did Friedrich Engels say about family?
Engels argued that family had a clear economic function for capitalism, by ensuring that wealth remained in the hands of the bourgeoisie. Family relations, based on clear legal contracts, facilitate inheritance and therefore when rich people die it is their children who keep hold of their wealth.
How the family supports capitalism?
Family relations facilitate inheritance and therefore when a member of the middle class dies, their children inherit their wealth and consequently this wealth stays within the middle class. As a result, they stay in the position as the dominant ruling class, thus maintaining a capitalist society.
What does Karl Marx say about family?
Thus, Marxists see the family as performing several functions that maintain capitalist society: the inheritance of private property, socialisation into acceptance of inequality, and a source of profits. In the Marxist view, while these may benefit capitalism, they do not benefit the members of the family.
What did Marx think about families?
Marxists see families as essentially a conservative institution that helps to preserve capitalism. They also weaken the position of individual workers in relation to the boss.
Why do functionalists prefer the nuclear family?
Functionalists, such as Parsons believe that the family provides important functions that form the foundation of a stable society. For example, socialising children in to the norms and values of society, providing financial support, reproduction of children and a safe space to carry out sexual relationships.
What did Robert Merton contribution to sociology?
He is best known for his theories of deviance, for his development of the concepts “self-fulfilling prophecy”, “unintended consequences”, “role strain”, “reference group” ,”role model” and for founding the sociology of science. He is considered to have been one of America ‘s most influential social scientists.